


When Devotion has Teeth

by WhoopsOK



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Blood Drinking, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Character Turned Into Vampire, Dehumanization, Fandom Trumps Hate, Getting Together, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Protective Steve Rogers, Vampire Steve Rogers, Vampires, Werewolf Bucky Barnes, Werewolves, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-18 14:34:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21278393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoopsOK/pseuds/WhoopsOK
Summary: Bucky’s sense of self as a wolf begins and ends with the smell of Steve’s blood. | Steve’s sense of self as a vampire begins and ends with the sound of Bucky’s heartbeat.(Steve has been turned into a vampire and somehow even that is easier to deal with than being separated from Bucky for 70 years.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 21
Kudos: 316
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2019





	When Devotion has Teeth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kalika_999](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalika_999/gifts).

> [tires screeching] I’m here, I’m here! It’s been months, but alas, I live and my FTH fic is <strike>longer than anticipated</strike> complete!!
> 
> Kali, you were truly wonderful to work with. I hope this fic was worth the wait and you enjoy the story! Thank you so much for contributing to The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, it means so very much. (If anyone else is able to give them some love, please consider it as well!)
> 
> A shout out to the lovely and talented silver9mm for beta reading this for me! Thank you so much, you are a superstar and regularly make me go all 😍
> 
> Anyway, enough of my babbling! Without further ado!

Bucky’s sense of self as a wolf begins and ends with the smell of Steve’s blood.

It was the first thing he learned to recognize about him, back when Bucky was still young enough that all smells sort of blended together in almost overwhelming waves. Everything in the whole world to see and hear and smell, too much to focus on for young puppies. But the scent of Steve’s blood, as faint and far off as it was at the time, cut through everything as clean and sharp as a whistle.

The older wolves always talk about that, the first thing you really, _really _smell. How that first scent is so strong it puts everything else in little wolf heads in proper order, puts all other smells in line. Some shifters went as far as to believe it’d say a lot about where you were headed in life; Ma certainly had something to say about his first scent being blood.

It wasn’t about the blood, though, or not just that anyway. It was _Steve_.

It was a little blond punk in the fight of his life, barely able to breathe and still snarling—through blunt human teeth—as he got his ass kicked.

Bucky doesn’t remember deciding to jump in the fight, but as quick as he was in, it was over and Steve was under his arm, both of them unsure of who was holding up who.

“I had ’em on the ropes,” Steve wheezed confidently, face a little twisted with pain but beautiful and bloodied and smelling distinctly human, but God, not even remotely plain.

Bucky smirked at him. “Sure you did, pal.”

Steve stared at him and Bucky didn’t understand the look on his face until he said, “You have fangs.” Then, when Bucky froze, mouth snapping shut, “I won’t tell. I kinda owe you one.”

It was a good enough promise for Bucky at the time.

Ma didn’t like it, yelled at him as soon as they came in the door. But she also likely cottoned on to the way Bucky kept scenting Steve, like he was brand new and everything about his smell was interesting, because it _was._ The sincere and contrite look on his face didn’t cover up the almost complete absence of fear in his scent. In fact, he seemed a little soothed when Ma started yelling at him, too, as she bandaged them up. It was the first in a long series of similar events.

Even when they’re old enough to hoof it to Steve’s apartment, Bucky sits him on the toilet to bandage the scrapes Steve can’t reach and lets Steve tend to his knuckles if he’s had to use them. Steve’s scent is thick and familiar in all the rooms the apartment; the hint of his mom’s old perfume, and cleaners diluted to so as not to make him dizzy, and the teas in the cabinet, and the only brand of shampoo that doesn’t break him out. And faintly, more and more, something Bucky recognizes as a part of himself.

Bucky’s sense of self as a wolf begins and ends with the smell of Steve’s blood.

It’s also why he learns to hate hospitals.

-

Steve has always been sick. The moment he was born, the moment he met Bucky, the moment his mom died and he was casually adopted by a family of werewolves has all happened with a backdrop of Steve being a stiff breeze away from being hospitalized.

There were a lot of stiff breezes.

And so, Steve coughs until he can’t talk, until his mouth tastes like blood, and Bucky says _enough_ and carries him to the clinic. Then sits with him “_To make sure you don’t make a break for it, punk,_” even when they both know Steve wouldn’t make it across the room, much less the street.

At this point the nurses all know Bucky just as well as they know Steve. He plays up the puppy in him for them, always respectful, but edging close enough to flirty that they roll their eyes and smile as soon as he comes in. That’s always been his sign.

Steve is wheezing, but the nurses are smiling, so he’s still breathing. Steve’s running a fever, but the nurse called him ‘_hot shot’_, so it must be breaking. Steve’s passed out, but the nurses are joking about buying him flowers and chocolate, so it was just his blood sugar, not his heart. They always smile and Bucky ignores the dreadful smell of hospital, because Steve is fine.

Today, when Bucky skids into the ER, nobody smiles at him and his heart about hits the floor. When the head nurse comes around the desk her mouth is tight, but she smells like tears and sickness and _Steve’s blood and Bucky hates the smell of hospitals._

The smell hangs heavy in Steve’s room now, sticks to Steve’s so much he almost doesn’t smell like himself anymore. Bucky wants to kiss him and scream and pull his hair out and cry. He listens to the doctors tell him what’s wrong—the whole long list of everything failing at the same time—and tries to make the words mean something other than what they do.

This pigheaded little blond is in another fight far too big for him, but this time Bucky can’t jump in.

-

It’s not the best idea, probably not even a good idea, but the alternative is Steve dying and Bucky isn’t ready to face that reality.

Bucky unplugs the machine before he peels the sensors off Steve’s chest.

Gathering Steve in his arms, a trembling mass of blankets and bones, breathing wheezily against his throat, Bucky shoulders out the door. There’s a nurse at the end of the hall that recognizes him as quick as he does her. He watches her face crumple like she’s about to cry before she nods in silent understanding, pretends not to see them as she carries on with her rounds. Something about that makes Bucky’s heart sink; like she realizes it doesn’t really matter where Steve goes right now, everyone knows he’s not coming back.

Dumb luck has gotten them out of a lot of scrapes thus far, he’ll have to trust it now, too.

“Buck…” Steve mumbles. He’s been muzzy and disoriented for days now, but he must know something is wrong.

“Yeah?” Bucky whispers back as he pushes his way out a staff door and onto the street. It’s cold out, but he’s got Steve as wrapped up as can be, right down to his feet.

“You’re awful clingy today,” Steve points out suspiciously, shifting minutely in Bucky’s arms.

Bucky huffs a strained laugh. “Don’t want to drop you. That head full of rocks? Might damage the ground.”

Steve snorts, but it makes him cough so hard he starts choking.

Bucky feels cold dread creeping up the back of his neck. “Come on, tough guy, don’t—” He cuts off, carefully tipping Steve forward when he starts to heave, holds him still long enough to hack up something unpleasant.

“We leaving?” Steve croaks when he finishes.

The question spurs Bucky back into motion. The staff may not call security on him, but that’s no guarantee a well-meaning pedestrian won’t call the cops. “Yeah, we’re leaving,” he answers softly, hurrying on down the street.

“They can’t do anything, can they,” Steve slurs after a few blocks, not quite like it’s a question. Bucky holding him tighter isn’t quite an answer either, but it’s enough. “Thank you.”

Bucky looks down at him. “What?” Steve’s eyes are bleary and his face looks alarmingly gaunt in the streetlights, even when he half-smiles.

“I was just about sick to death of being in that hospital.”

It’s an awful joke but Bucky laughs to hide the way it chokes him up.

“You’re awful,” he tells Steve and maybe sounds more adoring than he usually lets himself. Just as well that Steve is already slipping under again, a soft chuckle all he gets in return before Steve’s wheezy breathing evens out against his throat.

It’s getting late and Bucky starts moving a little faster, stands taller when they get closer to the Other side of town.

Steve never comes with him to the clubs on these blocks, so Bucky doesn’t often come here. Some places wouldn’t have allowed him, other places he would’ve stood out too much for Bucky’s nerves to take. Even now, just about anyone out at this hour can _smell _the human on him, and probably also the sickly scent of something easily preyed on. However, they can also probably hear the low growl Bucky lets out every time a gaze lingers on them for too long.

Bucky has only ever been in The Exposition a few times, the club too high-end for him and most of his dates. Howard Stark is the head of one of the biggest vampire covens in the States, uses his money in what seems to be an even split between science and revelry. Before Bucky’s last tour, all any of the other soldiers could talk about was Stark’s new weaponry and how soon they’d get to try it out, especially the stuff—they whispered—_tailor-made for Others_.

And sure, it’d sounded cool at the time, but really Bucky is more interested in the serums and potions, the biomagical-experiments. He had heard the humans in his squadron whispering about a _Project Rebirth_, how well it paid participants, what it supposedly did, how nobody they knew was brave enough to even try it. It goes without saying they thought Stark was weaponizing vampirism. Bucky has seen what happens when people turn to wolves; it’s never a clean transition, never easy.

It’s a bite and horrible shifting of bone and flesh, fangs breaking in over teeth, heaving breaths and confused, pained snarling. It’s hoping you have a pack to keep you level until it’s over and you know where you are again. He can’t imagine it’s much different for vampires, but… If there’s a science to it, a scientist behind it on Stark’s level…

Steve is gasping for breath in his sleep and has _hours_, not days. Bucky has to try.

The back of the club is guarded because of course it is, but it isn’t like Bucky could carry Steve in the front doors past the bouncers. The three guards at the back smell Steve and Bucky before they see them, faces scrunching as they turn. The vampire woman’s eyes flash pureblood gold as she picks them out of the gloom. Though Steve must smell sharply unpleasant and Bucky must reek of stress and desperation, she just looks tinged with concern.

For a moment, Bucky doesn’t even know where to begin, what to say. The two wolves just look annoyed, and he can feel himself gearing up for a fight, but before he can think of any words to string together, the vampire is already turning over her shoulder.

“I don’t think I’ll need to find you a candidate, Doctor,” she says smoothly, accented. The wolves stand down immediately. “One has found us.”

“_What do you mean?_” someone calls from inside before Bucky can raise the same question.

The man who comes out doesn’t look familiar, but his face flashes with recognition after he scents the air.

“Ah, Steven Rogers, was it?” he says sadly. Bucky’s hackles fly up on instinct. “You must be his wolf?”

Bucky doesn’t protest the phrasing; one fight at a time. “How do you know Steve?” he asks, guarded now.

The Doctor comes over to them, stopping carefully out of Bucky’s range. “He’s tried to get approval to join the military half a dozen times through my office.”

Of course, he has, the fucking knucklehead. Bucky could laugh, but he’s fairly certain he’d start crying.

“He needs your help,” Bucky starts and there are so many things he could say beyond that, so many ways he’s willing to beg and barter. His throat locks up as he tries to make them understand what the world is going to lose if they don’t save Steve Rogers. “I know…The other humans that went through basic with me talked about trials Stark was—”

“You know what you’re asking, yes?” the woman cuts in gently. “What this would mean for the _rest of his life_?”

Bucky swallows, because yes, he gets it. Steve has never envied Others, not really. There are times before where Bucky has convinced him to use trinket-magic, when they could afford it, but Steve has never asked for anything more than that. There are days Bucky has wished that his genetics would let him turn Steve himself, where he can’t help but think a little _Other _in his veins might have helped on the days Steve had to fight his own body to keep breathing. Steve never even asked, never saw it that way. Bucky would be doing this to him knowing he never would’ve asked for himself.

There aren’t many things between him and Steve that boil down to forgiveness, he can’t think about it like that. He knows he’s crossing a line here, but… “It means he’d _have _a life,” he answers her.

The Doctor and the woman look at each other, having a silent conversation about a world Bucky can hardly imagine. Lower class wolves and obscenely rich vampires live distinctly different lives, but God, he’s beyond willing to beg for whatever scraps of magic they can give him, give _Steve._ This is already his last hope, he doesn’t want to know where he’d have to go beyond here.

Eventually, the silent conversation ends and the doctor looks at him gravely. “I cannot promise anything,” he warns. “This is all experimental, _hypothetical._” He raises his hand when Bucky goes to say a chance is all Steve has ever needed. “It’s also meant to be quite powerful. I don’t… In the times I have met him, he has never struck me as the sort to abuse that.”

It’s a question.

“He’s not.” Bucky would swear on anyone’s grave. “Doc, he…” He looks down at Steve, bundles him closer with a sick lurch of fear when he notes the sweat on his brow—it’s _cold out._ “Steve is the best guy I know. More than that, he’s just _good._ He’s good and he’s _dying._” His voice breaks. “He’s dying and I have to at least give him a _chance._”

Whatever look the doctor sees on Bucky’s face must be enough. He nods then, quickly. “Well, let’s make sure that’s not the death he catches tonight, come on.”

Bucky moves instantly, following behind them. He doesn’t look this gift horse in the mouth, he knows damn well it has fangs.

That’s the whole point.

-

Bucky had been absently expecting them to leave the city, is a little surprised when they don’t.

Though the city doesn’t outlaw Others, it’s much easier for them to run businesses outside county lines. But Stark is an outlier, both of money and status, and apparently has the money to hide labs underneath entire city blocks. Bucky closes his eyes when asked, pressing his face to Steve’s hair, because what choice does he have? At least they didn’t make him put a bag over his head. On the ride over, he learns the vampire’s name is Agent Peggy Carter, currently on the project with one Dr. Abraham Erskine. Howard Stark has been informed of their arrival and their urgency.

Honestly, he seems a little too excited about the chance to experiment for Bucky, but the man is a legend and a purported genius. He’s willing to help and Bucky will retract his claws to let him.

The machine makes it easier and worse all at once.

Bucky had been prepared to fight down the savage protectiveness at seeing someone bite Steve, willing to pace as though caged, but not attack as their blood was forced into Steve’s. Instead, he has to let them stick Steve full of IVs and pry him out of his arms to put him in what looks like a fucking _coffin._

Bucky starts holding his breath the moment they close the door machine.

The world narrows down to the little porthole, just big enough to see Steve’s face through. There are still dozens of people zipping around the room, shouting information to each other, checking the readouts on the screens surrounding them, but Bucky can’t hear a thing over his own heartbeat. Even in the ringing silence of his own mind, Bucky knows the exact moment the machine is activated because it hits Steve like a shot of adrenaline right to the heart.

Steve’s face goes from slack to wide-eyed and screaming so quickly it makes Bucky’s hair stand on end more than the electricity in the air around them.

“What’s happening!?” Bucky shouts, because everything is in motion and Steve is in pain and nobody is _answering him. _“What did you—?” He recoils when electricity sparks off the machine, blowing a wire out of its socket. “Turn it off!”

“Turn it off!” Dr. Erskine echoes. Stark is hauling ass across the room to yank the cord out himself, seems like he gets electrocuted for his troubles.

Bucky honestly couldn’t care less, hands frantic on the machine, looking for a latch to— “_Open the door!_” he shouts, voice all snarl and violence, the tech nearest to him flinching even as he rushes to do as he’s told.

“_Stevie—_” Bucky says and Steve falls onto him, his hands gripping Bucky’s arms _bruisingly_ tight.

“Wha—what’s happening to me?” Steve asks, frantic and clinging, shaking violently. “Buck, _Bucky—!!_”

“Steve, look at me, I got you, just breathe, just—” Bucky cuts off when Steve looks up at him.

The blue in his eyes streaks sunset red-gold just before they roll back in his head and Steve goes limp.

-

It takes a lot of fast-talking and calming voices to keep Bucky from completely destroying the room, and just maybe everyone in it, but they manage. Steve is alive, he’s just exhausted. Peggy reminds him again, and again, and again, until he can understand the words enough to let them in to help.

Hours pass, but they tell him that’s fine, that it makes sense: Steve is adjusting to his new body. Even as Bucky’s stomach turns, he knows they’re right.

Steve looks so much paler now. He’s cool to the touch, too, like death brushed off on him but couldn’t get a good enough grip to keep him. His heartbeat is _glacial_ but there, steadily thudding away under Bucky’s fingers. It’s been so long since Bucky has been able to smell just Steve, not tinged with the smell of illness and drugs. He doesn’t smell quite as _warm_ anymore—not quite alive—but he still smells indisputably of Steven Grant Rogers. Bucky breathes out harshly when the thought stings his eyes.

Steve is breathing easily. That’s all Bucky wanted out of this.

They’ll cross all the other bridges when they get to them.

-

Steve’s sense of self as a vampire begins and ends with the sound of Bucky’s heartbeat.

He can’t tell exactly how much time has passed, but he knows something is different, _he’s _different. The little pains that categorized even his _best _days are gone, having shifted in new and alarming ways. The world is _searingly_ bright and smells like—_like familiar sour sweat, and unfamiliar shampoo, and doctor’s office, and burnt plastic, and ozone, and antiseptic, and blood, and detergent, and sharp and dull and moving and still and too much, too much, too much._

And over all of that is the drum banging inside his skull.

The drum speeds up when Steve groans and tries to sit up, teeth aching. He can’t see when he tries to open his eyes, even the dim light across the room streaking through his vision like a migraine.

“Steve?” Bucky says.

“Wha—?” He starts to speak, but why does his _mouth _hurt?

“Here, give him some of this,” a voice calls off to one side before Bucky’s hand is on his shoulder, holding a glass to his mouth. Steve gets one sip, thinking it’s possibly the most soothing drink he’s ever had, before he recognizes what’s in his mouth.

_It’s blood._

Steve spits it out, gagging less at the taste and more at the idea that it’s _fucking blood._ He shoves out at Bucky and—_fuck, did he hear the way Bucky’s heartbeat tripped?_—Bucky hits the floor, surprising both of them.

“Steve,” the voice says again and he turns to meet the golden eyes of the vampire woman standing off to Bucky’s side. “Please calm down,” she asks and it’s not quite a threat, but ‘not quite’ isn’t not at all.

Steve doesn’t care, fear has always been a foreign language to him. “What—what did you do?” he demands, because somewhere deep down he knows the answer, but he still looks to Bucky anyway. “What did you _do_?”

Bucky looks helpless, hasn’t even gotten up off the ground. “Steve, you were _dying,_” he starts.

“And rather quickly, at that,” the woman continues. “He brought you to us for help, imagining rather correctly that vampirism would correct many of your ailments.”

“And you _turned me?_” Steve demands. “While I was dying, you thought you would just—I wasn’t even—” He turns away from her because he doesn’t actually care about who she is or what she would do. “You didn’t even _ask _me, Bucky!”

“You were _dying_!” Bucky’s temper catches back up with him. “The doctors let me leave with you because there was _nothing _they could do and I found someone who _could do something. _I know you, Steve, I know what you wanted, but what would you have done to save me? All the stupid, _bonehead_ fights you get into for strangers, what would you do for someone you—?” He catches his words before they can leap out, his anger a flashbang quickly burnt out. He swallows, looking at Steve desperately. “What would you do for _me_?”

Steve stares him down, shaking with anger, but he knows Bucky can recognize the _anything, everything, whatever it takes _in his eyes. Steve also sees the fear in Bucky’s face, imagines that’s what he’s _smelling_ among a thousand other things. It’s making him nauseous. Sinking back down onto the bed, he covers his nose and mouth, clutching his stomach and trying to quell the overwhelming smell of _everything_.

“You have to drink, Steve,” Bucky says and Steve whirls on him.

“I don’t _have _to do anything,” he snaps,

“You’ll just go feral if you don’t,” another voice supplies from behind him.

Something in Steve goes uncharacteristically small and cowed at the sight of Howard Stark, eyes pure-blood gold and presence reeking of confidence. It hits Steve then that he’s got Stark’s venom in his veins, has become a part of his legacy, his _coven._ Still, the man beside him is even more familiar in a way that makes Steve stare at him in shock.

“_Dr._ _Erskine_?”

Dr. Erskine nods. “Hello, Steven,” he says and Steve’s vision seems to zero in on the bag of blood in his hand when Erskine waves it at him. “Just like any other need, it’s best you get it before you’re starving for it and your good sense leaves you.”

The idea of losing any other pieces of himself is more terrifying than anything else. A vampire—he’s _a vampire_ and he can’t stop shaking at the thought of being bloodthirsty and blind to anything else.

Tear prick his eyes and he’s not stronger than this he’s not, _he’s not—_

“Stevie—” Bucky starts to reach for him and Steve stumbles back.

“_Don’t_,” he snarls and can’t figure out how to will his fangs away, even at the sharp smell of Bucky’s hurt. He takes a shaky breath. “Let me cool off,” he says, because all in all he’s—this is Bucky. Steve Rogers is never in all his life—no matter how much longer it’ll be now—going to hate Bucky Barnes.

Even so, he’s stewing hot enough that he needs him to leave.

Bucky is not going to watch him drink blood for the first time. Not ever, if he can help it.

-

There’s about a two-week period where Bucky thinks he’s irrevocably ruined everything.

When he is politely escorted from Howard’s, it feels like he’s yanking a piece of himself out to leave Steve behind. He does it, though, because _he did this. _He made this choice for Steve knowing Steve would have to face consequences he couldn’t help him through. Bucky can’t say he really _trusts _Howard, but the man is reckless at worst, not malicious. He wouldn’t have offered to help Steve just to make him suffer, Bucky tells himself.

Peggy tells him the whole drive home: Steve will be fed and looked after until he is strong enough to go outside on his own. He is a member of the Stark Coven and will get the benefits of that. He repeats these words to himself, never once letting go of the fact that _Steve is alive._ Even if his sisters sure give him one hell of an earful when he tells them what he did.

It’s been two weeks and Bucky hasn’t seen hide nor hair of Steve and it’s got him so on edge every wolf in the neighborhood gives him a wide berth. He can’t help it, he’s snippy and tense like some insecure young blood, but he can’t get ahold of himself. His sisters are about fit to send him to the greenway to cool off, but one day he’s coming home and he _smells_—

Sprinting without thought, Bucky goes skidding around the corner to find Steve standing on the stoop of their apartment. The sleeves of his shirt are too long and baggy, leaving him looking rumpled and small under a big blue umbrella. His skin is maybe a shade paler than it was before, but he still looks healthier than he’s ever been.

“You know,” he starts, “I never noticed it before.”

Bucky swallows nervously. “Noticed what?”

Steve tips his head back some and Bucky’s world whirls a little bit when he realizes he’s scenting the air. “Our whole street smells like _dog_.”

It takes a moment for the words to register, but when they do, relief about takes Bucky’s legs out from under him. He laughs. “Watch your mouth, punk, that smell is why the rent is so cheap,” he says, coming up to stand in front of the steps so he’s eye level with Steve.

Steve is squinting a little, like even in the shade, it’s still too bright out, but he doesn’t look away. “I’m still angry.”

“I know,” Bucky replies. It’s not an apology, just like Steve hadn’t quite been asking for one. He’s cool to the touch when Bucky drags him in for a hug, but he doesn’t move away, holds on as tight as he can with an umbrella in one hand, his heartbeat slow and steady against Bucky’s chest. The smell of undisputed love in the air around them is probably sickening, but Bucky breathes easily for the first time in weeks.

They’re really, really going to be okay.

-

So, of course, Bucky has to go and get himself kidnapped.

It had smarted some when Bucky got his letter, but Steve wasn’t going to stand there and make things harder than they need to be. Bucky’s had to leave and Steve had things to do on the home front to be able to join him. And so, he’d trained with Peggy and Stark, and let Erskine run his tests until a cold man in his formals showed up at the apartment.

The details are fuzzy, a combination of government redaction and a surprise attack not leaving room for details, but Steve understands the gist of it. The squadron is gone and they’ll try to find them, but they aren’t hopeful and don’t pretend to be.

Of course, Steve goes for Bucky, of course he does.

Things move fast, then. Dr. Erskine doesn’t want him out fighting yet, but Stark made the serum to be a weapon in the first place. Steve is smaller than they might’ve wanted for a super soldier, but he’s fast and he’s smart and he’s going _one way or another_. Bucky’s not staying lost when Steve is alive to go and bring him home.

Steve fights with the best of them and they fight just as hard. He is not the only one with someone out there lost and there’s a camaraderie to that that isn’t found anywhere else. There’s also a camaraderie to blood given silently and in secret, blood that doesn’t involve wounds or war. Steve would’ve starved himself before draining a dying man, but he never has to face that choice. The Howling Commandos—appropriate name, even if only two of them were actually wolves—make him feel stronger than the serum ever could; he has their blood in his heart.

And out of all this, you would think facing down a demon would be the hardest part. Steve watches a man peel off his own face, a bloodred red skull staring him down underneath it, and someone begins to pray behind him seconds before things start going to hell.

In the end, Steve does find Bucky. For just a moment, across a battlefield, they see each other and Steve’s shoulders have just started to relax at the relief on Bucky’s face when suddenly Bucky goes down. Steve starts to shout for him when something tears through his shoulder, hurts far worse than any bullet has so far. Looking at his arm, he sees his skin sizzling and thinks _Hunters_, before he’s sprinting. It’s all chaos and everyone is fighting to stay upright, to get away, but Bucky is being dragged to his knees by a silver chain, closer and closer to a ledge no matter how hard he fights.

Steve is screaming for him, trying to get closer when he finds himself caught up in his own set of chains. They aren’t strong enough at first, but even Hunters come with friends and when eight—nine—ten vampires killers descend on him, he can’t—

A silver poker is shoved at his chest and pain rings out like a bell through his whole body, steals his breath and his vision for long enough that he gets knocked backwards. Some hindbrain knowledge kicks in when he recognizes, even before the lid slams shut, that he’s in a _coffin_. Everything feels damped, a sealing magic that forces itself into his nose, down his throat into his vision—_he can’t see or move_.

Steve feels tiny and helpless all over again, like every hospital bed he’s ever been laid up in is pressing on his chest. He can’t draw a full breath and all he can think about is Bucky’s worried face and he can’t get out, where is _Bucky, there’s water seeping into the coffin, where is Bucky, he has to find—_

The cold cuts through and numbs everything.

Steve sleeps.

-

For as fast as it happens, Steve doesn’t feel like he wakes up all at once. It almost doesn’t feel like waking up at all.

One moment, there’s nothing, not even the memory of anything, then awareness is rising him like a syrupy tide. Steve feels like he’s seeping back into his own body, forcing an icy vacantness out as he goes. It’s a slow return consciousness and sensation, time stretching as memory comes back to him. He can feel the echoes of the magic that bound him, the bruises on his palms from the coffin lid, his claws splintering against magicked wood, _where’s Bucky, he fell—_

Steve sits bolt upright unrestricted.

The clothes he’s wearing look familiar, but smell _off_, like he’s never actually worn them before. Looking around the room finds nothing familiar, everything around him aiming for some sterile attempt at homey. There’s even a radio playing, but the static over the announcer’s voice is _wrong, something is wrong._ Steve hears the footsteps—single set, high heel shoes on tile—coming down the hall and doesn’t quite know how to react when the door opens.

“Oh!” the woman says and he can smell the _not-quite-human_ scent of her when it sparks with surprise. “You’re awake!”

“Where am I?” Steve asks cautiously, because he’s not restrained, but there are other footsteps coming down the hall now, not quite a hustle, but much less casually.

“You’re in the hospital back in New York,” she says and the uptake in her heartbeat doesn’t necessarily mean she’s lying, but she’s a little too invested in him believing her.

When he stands, her demeanor shifts from a conciliatory nurse to a subtle fighting stance, and Steve’s instincts kick in before he has the chance to second guess himself.

It’s been a long damn time since anyone has been able to keep Steve Rogers anywhere he doesn’t want to be. She opens her mouth to speak and he’s already shoving past her, making a break down the hall. The alarm is loud enough to hurt, but he’s expecting it, doesn’t let his pace falter as he digs his claws into the wall to vault around the corner and head for the first window he sees.

That’s how Steve finds himself slamming face-first into the future.

For all the things he’s faced down unhesitatingly, the sight of Time Square stops him dead in his tracks. The lights and sounds are enough to overload him on their own, but through it all, there is something familiar that screams at him that he knows this street, knows this city. This is New York, but it’s _not his New York._

“Well, Cap, this isn’t the way we wanted to introduce you,” a voice calls and in his reeling, he hadn’t even noticed the sleek, dark cars pulling up around him. The man looks human, but something about his visible eye is significantly older than his face would imply. “But welcome to 21st Century New York.”

Steve goes with Fury for no more reason than the car he stepped out of has dark windows and there’s _too much_ to process without even beginning to tackle that sentence.

Even in the quiet dark of the car, as Fury explains the date and exactly what happened after Steve hit the water, it doesn’t get any easier to process. He knew vampires lived a long time, but _seventy years _passing in the blink of an eye is not something he was expecting to have to deal with. Stark went to great lengths to find him, right up until the end of his life. Decades ago.

“What killed him?” Steve asks, because Howard was young, especially by vampire standards. He smart and rich enough to be nearly untouchable.

Fury glances at him. “Hunters,” is all he answers. Steve can’t bring himself to ask anything more than that right now. “It was a different time.”

In the end, it takes a long time to understand exactly _how _different. There are a million questions running through his head, but all of them trip over the next million when they get back to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ. Technology he could only have ever dreamed of, monsters unsubtly walking among humans, no shame or flinching. They put him in a room with a polite man in a suit with no pulse.

“Never met a zombie before,” Steve says, for lack of anything better to say. 

Phil's smile is placid. “As charming as advertised.”

They talk for a long time, but Phil clearly is more excited than just polite. It comes up shortly that there were books written about Stark, which doesn’t surprise him, but apparently the fewer and shorter books about _Steve_ were Phil’s favorites. He has several copies and agrees to let Steve borrow them. More reluctantly, he allows Steve a stack of files covering his disappearance and what followed.

Steve ends the day at 5am the next morning in a fake apartment, filled with old-timey things he recognizes, but none of which are _right. _Reading through the books, with dates that seem like just yesterday to him even though they’re history to everyone else, is wildly disorienting. Reading the files about Howard being hunted down in the hunt to find him is too much for him to process.

There hadn’t even been time to process Bucky getting snatched away from him before he woke up in a future with nothing to his name. The files mention Bucky, honorably and in passing, beside Steve but there’s no indication he’d met the same fate Steve had. They’d had his memorial the same day as Steve’s and that thought is more than he can get his heart around.

Steve spends a long week in a fake apartment feeling unreal and detached from everything. Except hunger.

Natasha, the only other vampire he’s spoken to in the modern world, had come by to leave blood in the fridge. She stares him down, eyes turned-red, not a touch of gold to them, and he knows she sees right through him. “We don’t kill for food and they don’t hunt us anymore,” she says pointedly. “There’s no sense in starving.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, only a little sarcastic. He’s not going to feed, not—not yet. He’s a baby by vampire standards, but he’s gotten used to himself and his feelings. He’s not in any danger and, well, to be honest, he’d felt queasy just looking at it that first night.

The grief killed his appetite if not his hunger, but he finds ways to distract himself from both.

Running is still a marvel to him, with his newly working set of lungs, so he takes to the streets at a dead sprint almost every day. He tries not to startle anyone, often forgetting how much faster he can move than the average human, but he’s gotten good at sensing them before they see him. It becomes something of a game to avoid them.

It also becomes something of a game for him to fluster the other free runner in his neighborhood.

The man is some kind of shifter, but Steve can’t tell which. At least until Steve startles him with his “On your left!” and, in a flurry of feathers and curses, he’s over Steve’s head. Steve likes him immediately when he smells more annoyed than frightened.

Sam Wilson is good people and winds up being Steve’s first genuine friend in the modern era. He invites Steve over for breakfast, doesn’t hesitate to offer him a container of blood, far too readily to be a coincidence. Steve feels his eyes color abruptly and he looks away, a nauseous surge of hunger washing over him. “No, thanks, I’m—”

“Hey, man,” Sam says, grabbing his wrist like he doesn’t reek of nerves. He explains it away a second later. “You’re hungry and it’s activating my fight or flight sense, pun intended,” he jokes, but looks serious. “It’s just cow, Steve, have some.”

The blood being human or not isn’t the issue, but it’s a nice gesture. It’s hard to explain that there’s something too cold about blood that isn’t coming directly from someone wanting to give it. The last time he had blood it was given with love in confidence on a battlefield by people he'll never see again and…

“You can’t starve grief, man,” Sam says, but not like he’s quoting someone—which would’ve sent Steve up the wall—but like he’s lived that truth intimately.

It makes Steve swallow thickly. “Ain’t that the truth.”

Sam looks at him with understanding, nudging the container closer. “And I’m gonna level with you, having that in my fridge is freaking me out.”

Steve laughs when he takes the blood, because well, he _is_ hungry, and doesn’t mean to give his new friend a nervous tick.

Cow blood is…tolerable. That’s sort of how Steve feels about most things these days. There are nights where Steve sits up on rooftops, imagining Bucky making gargoyle jokes, and can’t make himself come down for hours. There are other nights, though, when he thinks he can do this, once he really figures out what _this _is.

Having a friend helps more than he can put into words.

-

Being an Avenger is like being in the military again in a lot of ways. The war is shinier, seems to move faster, but it’s just as brutal and hard to stomach at times. That’s about what Steve expects, though, so when Fury asks him to join S.H.I.E.L.D., he’s just as willing to jump into it as he was in back in the day.

Meeting the team had been an odd bit of whiplash because he recognizes Tony Stark before he even introduces himself.

“Jesus Christ,” Steve mutters before he can catch himself.

“No, but I’m flattered,” Tony answers, smirking. “So, you’re the man, the myth, the legend, huh? Somehow I thought you’d be taller.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say to that, but can’t help standing up a little straighter. He still offers his hand. “I’m Steve Rogers.”

Tony seems amused by that. “I know.” He takes off his sunglasses, eyes twinkling with pureblood gold and with the same inherent mischief as his father. “Pop spent my whole life telling stories about you.”

There’s an apology on the tip of Steve’s tongue, coated in grief, but Tony’s nose wrinkles like he smells it coming and wants none of it. He puts his shades back on and nods for Steve to follow him. “Come on, the rest of the circus is this way.”

It takes almost no time at all for Steve to like them. Natasha is a familiar and welcome face in the room, though the hawk shifter sitting on the back of her chair casually salutes him like an old friend. Steve doesn’t quite know what he’s smelling on Bruce—what the man _is_—other than relief when Tony comes back to stand at his shoulder, but he seems friendly enough. Thor smiles like the sun and smells like ozone; when they shake hands there’s a spark between their palms that Steve fights not to react to.

Working with them is always one wrong look away from total chaos, but they get the job done.

Saying they’re ‘saving the world’ seems a little self-important, but Steve likes that he’s making a name for himself outside the legend Howard made of him. People look at him and think he’s fragile, for the split second before he’s fighting through them like tissue, faster than they can defend. It takes a lot to take him down, even more to _keep _him down, and he’s yet to find anything in all their missions that can stop him for long.

Then one day, it all grinds to a halt.

They’ve been working to pick apart Hydra for months now. Steve has already lived in the results of how far they’re willing to go over the line, has seen the extents of inhuman cruelty within the walls of their labs. When they find a new one to tear down, Steve generally goes in claws first, with very little patience for anyone inside who’s upright and lucid. Fury also will send him into the prison holds, because vampire or no, most people can look at Steve and see the kindness behind his fangs. Those days are the heaviest for Steve, but he doesn’t shirk the duty, because he’d rather pick someone up and carry them out than watch them try to crawl.

And yet, for everything he’d been prepared for, when he gently opens the door to the latest hold, the scent nearly knocks him off his feet. His stomach hits the floor and his heart leaps up into his throat well before his eyes even adjust to the gloom to see what’s growling at him.

“_Bucky_?” Steve croaks and suddenly, doesn’t have a clue where or _when_ he is.

They’ve seen things like this before, elaborate magical illusions rigged up to lead people to their deaths, but _this isn’t that._ The smell in the room is thick with fear and blood, but Steve recognizes the scent underneath as easily as he would recognize his own.

His fur is streaked with greasepaint and matted in places. A large silver collar is tight around his throat and a muzzle covered in runes hides most of his face, but Steve knows _exactly _who this wolf is.

And yet, Bucky snarls at him, all teeth and rage, no recognition.

Tony slams the door shut before Bucky can charge out of it. Instead, he crashes into the metal, carrying on like he’d kill them if it weren’t for the steel in between. “You got a death wish we should know about? I feel like that should be a disclaimer on your superhero resume.”

Steve shakes himself, is _shaking _all over. “That’s _Bucky_,” he says, because there are few things he knows better in life than James Buchanan Barnes. “That’s—how is he—?” He shifts towards the door, but Tony doesn’t let him go. Steve twists out of his grip but finally gets ahold of himself. “He didn’t _recognize me_, what—?”

The Hulk sneezes loud enough to scare the shit out of everyone. Steve turns to see him scrubbing his face and backing away from the door, body haphazardly shifting from orc green back to human pale, Bruce falling on his ass, sneezing so hard it sounds painful. “That _magic—_” He sneezes again and scrubs at his nose, eyes watering. “I _hate _binding spells,” he says with the kind of vehemence that lets Steve know he means it with every fiber of his being. Bruce points at the door accusingly. “_That _is not—” He sneezes again. “It’s not just binding him, it’s _made him something else_.”

“What does that mean?” Steve asks desperately. He tenses all over when Sam steps up beside him.

Sam looks at him. “It’s not just recognizing you, Steve,” he says gently. “He might not be the same _at all_. He might not _be_—”

Steve knows where that sentence is going and doesn’t want the end of it. “I know him,” he insists firmly, as though the real genuine fear that he hasn’t felt in a long time hasn’t made a blender of his insides. “I know him, Sam, he’s—there’s no way he’s not in there, somewhere.” It can’t be true. They can’t have made it to the same century together to lose to _Hydra_. Steve refuses to believe that.

“Well…” Tony’s gauntlets fold back into their bracelets and he looks at the door. “Let’s keep Cujo muzzled for transport,” he says and before Steve can feel proper rage take over, “I assume he’s coming home with us?”

“_Is _he?” Natasha asks, but when Steve looks at her, icier than he’s ever felt towards her, she draws up. “You heard Sam.”

“Don’t use Sam’s words in this fight,” Sam cuts in. He does look uncertain, but he puts his hands up when Natasha frowns at him. “Steve is the only person in the world he’s got a chance at recognizing without going nuclear on,” he says. “I can’t in good faith tell you to send him to some facility full of scientists that aren’t ready to deal with him.”

“Are _we _ready to deal with him?” Clint asks, bow still drawn even with a door between he and Bucky.

Bruce is trembling from his transformation, clinging to the remnants of his clothes. “He can have the Hulk’s panic room.” He looks up at Steve, nodding at the gratitude on his face. Then he squints at Clint. “Can you shoot fast enough to sedate him?”

Clint looks offended at the question. “I thought we were friends,” he mutters, pulling a different arrow out of his quiver. Then, as a second thought, pulling out three more in the same hand. “Operation Dog Catcher is a go. Ready when you are, Cap.”

It takes all four arrows, a syringe, and an Avenger dogpile to get Bucky down and into a transport vehicle.

It takes Sam catching Steve by the arm and whispering, “_What would he do to himself if he found out he hurt you?_” to keep Steve from getting in with him.

Still, Steve can only take so much.

When Fury doesn’t want to let him in Bucky’s containment, Steve doesn’t argue. It takes everything in him to fight that nature, but he keeps his mouth shut and simmers silently. Then _moves_ silently, listening to every pulse in observation until they calm, until they’re disinterested in him for now, until he’s at the door. He lives in this tower and Tony’s security is airtight, but he expects Steve to be much more of a _boy scout _than he actually is. Faster than anyone can react, faster than JARVIS can warn them, Steve is punching the emergency unlock code and sliding into the room with Bucky.

Of all the dumb, knucklehead shit Bucky has done for him—Steve slams the lockdown button, stares right at Fury as he does it—Steve figures he’s owed at least one on credit.

This time, in an unfamiliar area, Bucky just presses into the corner.

“Come on, Buck,” Steve says quietly, going to his knees. “It’s just me…”

There’s nothing like recognition, but he isn’t attacking. He’s low to the floor like he’s confused and terrified, like Steve might _hurt him._

“It’s ok, Bucky, it’s ok,” Steve says and doesn’t care how dangerous it is, how dumb it is to reach for him, how much the silver burns his palms when he finally connects. He grips the collar around Bucky’s neck with his bare hands, pulling with all his strength until is snaps. He throws it across the room heedless of his sizzling palms. Bucky makes a horrible wheezing sound when it comes free, the skin beneath it raw and furless. He hacks and coughs inside the muzzle and Steve can’t listen to it, he can’t. “I got you, Buck,” he tells him and pries that open, too, ignoring the pounding on the glass behind him, ignoring Bucky’s low growling and the panicked flutter of his heartbeat.

Even when Bucky gets him flat on his back, Steve just lays out his palms and looks him in the eyes.

“Bucky,” he says, then again, “Bucky,” and again and again and again—

-

The Asset does not have a long memory as it does not need one. It does precisely as it is told or it is punished.

This is the extent of its life and it needs no more knowledge than this. There is blood and violence, then pain, then long stretches of cold nothing before being jarred back to life. It doesn’t question this, because it is not told to.

Then something goes wrong.

There are alarms blaring and people shouting through the walls and gunfire. It is familiar with this and stands coiled and ready to tear the throat out of whoever its latest Handler points it at.

Handler does not come in. The person who enters doesn’t speak the codewords that precede commands and must be an _enemy_. The door slams shut again before The Asset can eliminate the target, increasingly agitated. It does not hesitate—there is no need for fear or hesitation when taking down Handler’s enemies—when the door opens again, even restrained, it doesn’t hesitate.

It catches something sharp to the chest, the chest, the shoulder, the flank, probably more, but pain is irrelevant, until the world is moving too slow. It finds itself dizzy and piled under more weight than it can bear until it’s in darkness again.

The darkness fades instead of snapping into painful brightness. It knows something is wrong just from this before it even smells the room. It’s nearly too dizzy to move, but forces itself upright and into the corner, hunched and protective.

It is not surprised when the man—_the little vampire_—returns, but it growls anyway, more reflex than sense. The words the vampire says are placating and gentle and _meaningless, _but—

_Bucky._

The Asset freezes at the word, because it…it _feels._ It doesn’t think it’s felt in a very long time, has forgotten it ever could understand anything but success and punishment. But it hears the word and feels like it means something. Not quite like an order, something more profound than that.

_‘Bucky’_ belongs to someone else and The Asset doesn’t really know who, but the vampire says it again and breaks its collar off and it can _breathe_. The vampire says it again and takes off its muzzle and The Asset reacts on instinct and barrels the vampire over, growling in his face_._ He can hear alarmed shouts through the glass, but the vampire smells sad, not scared, and keeps saying _that word_.

In the middle, it starts to stitch itself together into something familiar. Into something said in every possible inflection, with exasperation because someone is too old for carnival games, while in pain because coughing aggravated his bruised rib, to apologize after a fight and accept an apology in the same breath, laughing at a godawful joke, with fear because the doctors shook their heads, with _fear because he wasn’t a human anymore and you did this. _With love, because Steve has always, for as long as he’s known him, loved a guy named Bucky.

And, God alive, Bucky loved the hell out of him, too.

The Asset—_Bucky _remembers himself and it—_he, _he’s a wolf, yes, but he’s a _man_, too.

Bucky gasps at the horrible twisting that passes through him. His body, having forgotten the pain of shifting, stuck as a wolf for so long, creaks and pulls in a way it never had before. He stumbles backwards, half-yowling in alarm, for himself, but—but wait, the _vampire_—he knows—he needs to be sure—

-

Bucky’s hands close on his shoulders, eyes hunted and half-wild as he looks Steve in the face.

“Steve?” he says and his voice sounds more animal than Steve remembers. It sounds like he’s been choking since the last time they saw each other.

Steve nods quickly, tears welling in his eyes before he can stop them. “Yeah, Bucky,” he says. “It’s me, Buck, it’s—”

Bucky collapses and Steve feels a cold bolt of alarm pierce through him for a moment, but Bucky has just crumbled into his arms. He’s shaking all over, breath coming out in near-silent whimpers.

“Stevie?” he says again, sounding lost and hurt.

Swallowing back his tears doesn’t work this time, so Steve just folds himself as best he can around Bucky, shielding his head with his arms and whispering into his hair. “Yeah, Bucky, it’s me, you’re ok now, Bucky, I promise, I won’t let anyone—”

Bucky clings to him and Steve’s throat closes up on him. He holds on, too, and cries like he’s never given himself the chance to.

-

Bucky doesn’t talk much now, not at first anyway. In fact, he doesn’t make much noise at all after the initial growling is done.

Steve used to joke about the puppy in him, the mess-maker that charmed anyone he smiled at, but the joke feels well and truly dead. There’s only ever a hunter in his stance these days, only ever a wolf behind his eyes.

It thaws, though, slowly.

At first, Steve is the extent of interaction Bucky can take, which is just as well since Steve’s hair stands on end anytime someone even looks at Bucky for too long. Fury is pissed, but not exactly surprised, and allows their “time out”, as Tony puts it, to be spent on Steve’s floor of the tower. Bucky haunts the space behind Steve for weeks before he’s any semblance of verbal again. Steve lets Sam bridge the gap first when Bucky asks why it smells like a birdhouse in here. They hate each other in the best possible way, where Sam can snark at him and Bucky can growl and neither of them means it much at all.

The others are wary at first, but Bucky doesn’t exactly blame them, regularly slides behind Steve when they’re around, talking over his shoulder if at all.

Bucky spends his first moon back in the Hulk’s panic room, heartbeat a terrified staccato Steve can feel from floors away. He goes to sit with him, in spite of his wary whimpering; it’s been so long since Steve has heard him growl outside of waking from a nightmare.

“You know they have legit wolf runs now?” Steve offers casually, because Bucky hasn’t really been outside as a civilian in this century, not that he and Steve can piece together from his shredded memory. “Legit ones, where like the whole neighborhood goes out to the woods to…” He pauses, shrugs. “I don’t know, throw a rager? Chase their tails?”

Bucky doesn’t laugh, not remotely, but there’s exasperation in his expression, even fully shifted. His heartbeat slows and Steve keeps talking. Then Sam talks, then Natasha, then Clint, then Bruce and Tony. Eventually, the panic room spends more time empty than not and Steve can leave for missions without feeling like he’s tearing his heart out of his chest. It’s too soon for Bucky to even watch him leave, let alone try to follow him, but the dust is settling.

On the nights where he wakes up sweating and half-shifted, half out of his mind, Steve is there to cover his eyes and tell him where he is.

“Your hands are cool,” Bucky mumbles one night, shaking against Steve’s palms.

“Yeah,” Steve says, because he always had cold hands, even before he was turned. “Good cool?”

“Mm,” Bucky nods and Steve presses his cheek against Bucky’s forehead.

By the time Bucky has dug his way back to the surface completely, the remnants of the binding spells are as washed out of his system as they’re going to get; they’re found some semblance of normal. Steve doesn’t like that normal involves Bucky holding a gun again, but Bucky had looked at Fury and asked “_Where’s the fight?_” and Steve has to respect him for that.

Bucky has always been good at what he does, especially with Steve watching his six, but missions still take a lot out of him. So they do try to at least pretend they get to live normal lives sometimes.

“So, what next?” Bucky says when he gets out of the shower, wanders into the sitting room, his hair dripping into the collar of his shirt. His smile is genuine if tired. “Taking me out for a night on the town? Maybe some dancing, Stevie?”

Steve rolls his eyes and throws his towel at Bucky. “Try takeout and a movie. You wanted to watch _Lord of the Rings, _right? Do you have the disk?”

Bucky snorts. “It’s on the DVR,” he says, drying his hair with Steve’s towel. He leaves it wrapped around his shoulders, half pulled up over his mouth breathing deeply. When Steve just stares at him instead of responding, he arches an eyebrow. “Steve?”

Steve shakes himself. “Yeah, sorry. On the what?”

“The DV—”

“No, I heard you,” Steve cuts in, “What’s a DVR?”

Bucky just stares at him for a second, pulling the towel down to show his disbelieving smile. “_...Steve_.”

Steve bristles, but it feels good to argue with him again. “What! I _just_ figured out the universal remote—”

“Which connects to the DVR!” Bucky exclaims, pointing at one of the many black boxes under the TV.

“That’s the DVD player!”

“JARVIS,” Bucky says to the ceiling, because of all the things he should’ve taken longer to get used to, he has already accepted that the tower is haunted. “Which one of these is the DVR?”

“_This one, sir,_” JARVIS replies politely, lighting up one of the boxes neither of them were pointing at.

There’s a pause where Steve thinks he can feel JARVIS mocking them through the silence.

“Ok, so that’s a DVR,” Steve says, passing the remote to Bucky. “Since you know so much, find your movie, I’m going to grab the food from downstairs.”

Bucky’s appetite is almost back up to what it was when they were kids. With less anxiety taking up space, he winds up shoveling down as much food as he can in one sitting every time. Steve doesn’t quite attack his food the same way, but he does tend to eat more when he hasn’t…_fed _recently. He finishes his box and starts on the other half of Bucky’s third. There’s blood in the fridge in Tony’s lab, he knows this, but hasn’t made a break to get any yet.

It probably says something unflatteringly saccharine about him that he chooses sticking close to Bucky over getting as much blood as he should.

Still, he’s probably starting to edge into the side of waiting too long again.

“What, am I more interesting than the movie?” Bucky says and Steve comes back to himself to realize he’s been staring. “Sorry, I know it’s distracting how hot I am, but I can’t really help it.”

Steve sneers at him. “Your heartbeat is distracting,” he snaps. “I know the lead actress is pretty, but try not to drool over very blonde dame you see.”

That’s one of the things Bucky would usually rise to the bait of responding to, but now he’s just gone still. “When was the last time you fed?”

Steve wishes he could suck the joke back. “Tony gets scheduled deliveries from the Bank,” he deflects, tossing in an eye-roll for flavor. “We’re stocked up, don’t worry. Your neck is gonna be fine.”

“That’s not what I asked and you know it,” Bucky says, now fully focused on him. “Steve, have you had any blood this week?”

Steve tries to wave him off. “I don’t need to feed _every_ week, Bucky.”

That’s probably true, or at least, it hasn’t been a problem to this point.

The look on Bucky’s face says he means to make it a problem. Steve feels something like shame clenching in his stomach right beside the hunger. “_Don’t_,” he says, trying to head off the issue.

“Are you seriously telling me not to be worried that you aren’t _eating_?” Bucky snaps, face closing off when Steve goes to motion at the takeout containers on the table. Steve swallows the blitheness. “I thought we were past the phase of your life where I had to chase after you about taking your meds.”

Steve bristles at that, not in the fun way. Bucky knows damn well they couldn’t afford for him to take his pills every day, no matter how much he tried to pretend otherwise. “This isn’t the same thing, you lunkhead,” he says. “I’m not hard up for blood, ok? I feed when I need to.”

Bucky eyes him then, seeming to realize something. “You just don’t want to?” he asks and when Steve turns away, “Where does the blood come from?”

“The blood’s clean and legal. Can we not do this?”

“Ok, yeah, but _whose_—? It is human, right? Do they put it in _bags_?” He sounds a little perturbed.

This feels wildly intimate, like discussing going to the bathroom, but without the benefit potty humor. Steve stands up, picking up the mess from dinner just to give his hands something to do. “Well, yeah, it’s not like I’m going into a velvet room in the back of a hospital to feed, Bucky.”

Bucky doesn’t respond for a moment. His voice is gentle when he speaks up. “That sounds clinical,” he says, because he’s always known Steve too well.

“Nothing to do about,” Steve replies as he heads for the kitchen, because he’s always been a realist. As much as he misses his old life, how much someone has to trust you to let you feed off them and _knowing _that he has people that trust him that much, this is simpler, too. He doesn’t have to ask someone and hope they don’t react poorly, doesn’t have to hide in dark corners of a warzone. It’s not awful, really it’s not, even if it’s wildly disorienting to see Natasha sipping out of Tony’s blood bag, casually like it’s not a big deal. That’s just not the time he grew up in. He’s…adjusting.

So leave it to Bucky to shake the ladder he’d been taking to his new normal, leaving him crashing down into the basest desire he’s ever felt. Steve whips around at the scent of Bucky’s blood, cutting through the air as clean and sharp as a whistle.

Bucky stands there uncaringly, undaunted by Steve’s bloodred gaze. The cut on the inside of his elbow flows sluggishly. “Get it while it’s hot, for once.”

“Bucky—” Steve croaks but has to swallow when his mouth floods with venom, waiting to feed. He doesn’t trust himself to move; he should make a break for it, leave the room entirely, but all his senses have zeroed in on Bucky.

“Come on, punk, you too good for wolf blood?” Bucky challenges, holding a hand under his elbow when it starts to run. “This is a delicacy, don’t let it go to waste.”

Steve is buzzing inside, his restraint creaking unsteadily. He isn’t actually sure what wolf blood tastes like, but he wants to know. “I—” He tries to clear his senses, but every breath he takes clouds his mind with want. He should leave right now, shouldn’t let himself start down a slope he won’t be able to stop. “Bucky, you _can’t_…”

“Hey,” Bucky says and presses a hand over the wound. His face is still unconcerned, but he gentles his voice. “Stevie, I’m not going to let you hurt me. I know you want this.”

And the thing is, he does, he _really, really _does. Some part of him always has, but he’s never let himself cross that bridge, unsure of what version of himself would be waiting on the other side. Bucky has always had a way of knocking Steve’s feet out from under him when he thought he’d been standing firm.

“Just…” He swallows, takes a jerky step forward like he’s been pulled. “This can’t be a regular thing, I can’t let you—”

“Worry about tonight, Steve,” Bucky urges. “Come on, top yourself off. It’s okay.”

There are only a few steps between them, but they feel giant. Steve means to just tide himself over with Bucky, he rationalizes. Bucky’s offering and they _are _that close, Bucky trusts him, so Steve has to trust himself at least that much. It feels like risk, though, when Bucky peels his hand away and Steve’s awareness of anything else fizzles down to nothing.

It was never like this with the others.

Yeah, the Commandos loved him and he felt warmed at the taste of their blood; he will _never _forget or belittle that. But as soon as he gets his lips on Bucky’s skin, gets a hot mouthful of his blood, he finds himself groaning because _this _feels _right_. Bucky tastes like coming home after being lost and alone in the dark for so long you’d forgotten what feeling safe was like. It sets Steve’s heart to pounding in his chest, he can feel it going right to his head, like the world is brighter and warmer than it was moments ago_._ His hands find the back of Bucky’s arm and he gasps softly when Bucky puts his other hand on his back, inviting him closer.

“There we go, Stevie, just like that, s’all yours,” Bucky mumbles and Steve goes warm all over because yes, _yes. _Bucky tastes like he’s meant for _Steve._

Steve only stops when Bucky’s claws come out, digging into his shoulder. His voice breaks when he whispers, “_Stevie_.”

It brings Steve back to himself in a panic, but Bucky doesn’t let him go. “It’s ok, I just—I’ll need to sit down if you want more.”

“No,” Steve says, clears his throat when it comes out growl, Bucky’s pulse stuttering at the sound. “No, I’m—that’s enough, I—sorry.” He licks the cut until it heals over, ignores the pounding of Bucky’s heart, the heat rolling off him in waves. He doesn’t recognize the musky scent filling his nose until Bucky’s voice comes out rough around the sound of his name.

Steve pulls his mouth back. Bucky’s arm is clean but he can’t quite manage to meet his gaze, because that’s—that’s arousal, it has to be, but it also _can’t _be, Bucky isn’t… He sucks in a breath when Bucky brings up his bloodied palm to Steve’s face. He does look up then, to find Bucky looking at him with hooded eyes and pale cheeks.

“You owe me some orange juice and a cookie,” Bucky jokes, but it sounds like he’s apologizing.

Steve laughs uneasily. “Sorry,” he says again, but takes the offered hand and licks it clean. “Thank you.”

“Mm.” There’s a moment where Bucky’s fingers lay against his face, stroking reverently as Steve takes the last of the blood, but as soon as it happens, it’s over. Bucky sits heavily on the sofa and just looks at him, looking as content as Steve feels, if sleepier. “I think I’ll actually take a cookie if we have any.”

“Yeah, of course,” Steve says and stumbles to get it. He feels a little wired now, like he’s running hotter than usual, even after a good feeding. Then he thinks about how wolves always run hot and how Bucky’s blood is coursing all through him and has to press his forehead to the counter for a second. When he gets back, Bucky has his head leaned back on the couch. His eyes slide over to Steve when he comes in with a sleeve of chocolate chip and an apple juice. “You okay?”

“Sure, pal,” Bucky says, yawns. He pauses though, sniffing faintly and giving Steve a cautious look. “You smell—”

“Full,” Steve lies, like he can’t feel the lust twining with every other emotion in him right now. He needs to go take care of himself, but not until he’s sure Bucky’s not going to pass out. “Need help to—?” He chokes on the word ‘bed’ as Bucky eats a cookie, watching his throat bob with the motion.

Bucky’s neck is the kind of temptation Steve is well-versed in ignoring but, until tonight, so was his blood. He takes a tiny step back, even if he can’t pry his eyes away from where Bucky is lounging carelessly_._

“Nah, I think I’ll stay here a bit,” Bucky answers anyway, motioning the package of cookies at the movie they definitely missed the important parts of. He lets his eyes fall down Steve’s body before he says, “You could stay, though.”

It sounds like it may be about more than just finishing the movie.

Steve starts to say he’s tired, starts to make up any other lie to get him out of this room. Then decides on the whole open-ended, up-to-interpretation truth. “Not tonight.”

That makes Bucky perk up some, even if he still looks tired. “Oh?”

“Goodnight, Buck,” Steve blurts quickly, turning for their bedrooms before he can make any more questionable decisions tonight.

“Night, Stevie,” Bucky replies and, rather politely, turns up the volume on the TV.

Even so, Steve bites his hand bloody when he sees to himself in the shower, running hot on Bucky’s blood and the feel of his skin against his tongue.

Before he turns in for the night, Steve quietly asks JARVIS to turn off the electronics and tosses a blanket—_his _blanket—over Bucky’s sleeping form.

If he never gets it back, neither of them feel the need to bring it up.

-

For a long time, Bucky has been too stressed for it to be an issue.

Back when they were younger, Steve knew about Bucky’s ruts in an external sort of way. It usually started with him getting touchier about Steve talking to people, overly-protective of normal conversations and glances. It would annoy Steve for a half-second until he’d notice Bucky’s face was flushed and eyes fever-bright before sending him home to ride it out. When they’d first started living together, he’d just stay out a little longer, courteously, while Bucky spent the week half-shifted, growling and, uh, _seeing to himself_ behind the bedroom door. Eventually, they bought a gramophone and Steve kept his head under a pillow on the sofa.

In the present day, Bucky had been through too much strain for his body to have the energy for a rut cycle. He’d been on all kinds of magical trinkets and restraints, force-fed so many potions, there was a long period of detoxing to get him to even _smell_ like just himself again. Things are getting better, though. Bucky doesn’t shut down as much, doesn’t only speak when spoken to, can shift between forms without getting stuck and panicking. He smiles again and Steve feels it like a light in his chest.

Still, Bucky’s body catches up to him eventually, and Steve knows about a week out that Bucky’s about to hit his rut, because he smells _so fucking good._

The first day, he hadn’t thought too much of it, the way his scent was a little more acute than usual, the way it made Steve want to stick his face in his neck. He’s constantly fighting dumb impulses around Bucky. In the long and increasingly weird story of Steve Rogers, that at least has not changed. But when it just gets worse, the scent thickening over the week, Steve realizes what’s happening the same moment he realizes he’s about to be in for it.

Steve’s skin crawls at the steadily increasing _desire_ in Bucky’s scent. It’s setting his teeth on edge not to be able to touch him, not how he’d like to, anyway.

Bucky’s previous protectiveness suddenly makes sense, seems _tame _in comparison to what Steve wants to do.

Steve’s eyes have been rimmed red since Bucky came in the dining room. It’s not so much that he wants him to _leave_ as that there are too many people around him. Steve wants to take Bucky away and hide him in a room where _nobody else gets to smell—_

“Something up, Cap?” Tony asks, eyes a blissfully unaffected brown and twinkling with amusement. He glances at Steve’s lap. “Like _really _up?”

“Shut up,” Steve snaps, because ok, yeah, Bucky’s got him keyed up, but he has self-control. He’s not a teenager who pops a boner every time his crush’s heat approaches.

Though, he does start to question his own self-restraint a little when Natasha walks over to Bucky. He’s sweating, sucking down glasses of water with his breakfast like it’s going out of style.

“You look hot,” Natasha snorts and Bucky turns to glare at her.

“I’m always hot,” he dodges casually but doesn’t move when she reaches to touch his forehead.

It doesn’t mean anything. Steve isn’t _stupid,_ he knows it doesn’t mean anything. It’s the most platonic of platonic touches: a caring fever check, a friend’s cool hands on an overheated face. Bucky probably appreciates not feeling like he’s about to spontaneously combust for a second.

Thing is, Steve’s hindbrain doesn’t get the message because he feels his irises snap fully red, fangs piercing his gums at the thought of someone else’s hands on _His Mate. _In rut, no less_._

A snarl startles out of Steve unbidden, low and savage, so much more vicious than it seems like someone his size should be able to make. He’s never made a sound like that in his _entire life_.

The whole room goes silent at it just as Steve’s hand flies up to his mouth, as shocked as anyone.

Bucky stares at him, wide-eyed and dumbstruck.

Natasha just raises her eyebrows delicately, removing her hand from Bucky’s face. “_Well._”

Steve shoots to his feet. “I’m—I’m _so _sorry,” he says, shaking himself to clear his head. It doesn’t really work, so he takes a few stumbling steps back, tries to breathe more shallowly. “_Shit_, Nat, I didn’t mean to—”

“His rut must be rubbing off on you,” Natasha cuts in, more entertained than offended. She looks down at Bucky’s suddenly bright red face. “Maybe you should rub back.”

Steve feels himself go flush which isn’t even a thing he can normally do. He opens his mouth—to apologize again, to try and clear the air by chastising her lewd joke, to say_ no,_ _it isn’t like that_—when he gets a lungful of Bucky’s scent again, stronger suddenly.

“_Steve_,” Bucky croaks, standing as well, like he means to chase Steve down if he tries to run. Or, no, like he’ll stay right where he is and fall to pieces.

When Steve looks away from Natasha to meet Bucky’s gaze, he finds the arousal filling his nose is also visible in Bucky’s blown pupils. He flashes hot all over at the thought, getting a startling bout of tunnel vision for Bucky alone. For a second, he can’t think of anything in the world other than how badly he wants to close the distance between them, until Tony’s chair scrapes across the floor, bringing him back to reality.

“You know, Bruce, I just remembered, we have something to do on a different floor right now immediately,” he says, carefully skirting around Steve and heading towards the exit.

“Yeah, we better get on that quick,” Bruce agrees, carefully not even _looking_ in Bucky’s direction.

Steve feels a little bad about that, but also appreciates the courtesy.

Clint is less subtle. “Hey, Nat, wanna go to the range while these two finally bang it out?” he asks, offering her an elbow.

Natasha takes it, but with a dramatic sigh as she shoots Steve a significant look. “Well, I guess it took them long enough.”

There isn’t really anything to say to that, so Steve just ducks his head, scratching at his cheek sheepishly. The table between them feels like miles apart; a trip they’re about to make that will leave them closer than they’ve ever been. The elevator shuts behind the others and JARVIS politely informs them the floor has been switched to privacy mode. Steve swallows, already tasting venom on his tongue.

It starts with Bucky chuckling, like he isn’t pink in the face and reeking of _‘please let me fuck you’_ from clear across the room. “You territorial little shit,” he teases.

Steve sneers at him, a flash of his fang passing over his lip that Bucky’s eyes lock on immediately. He closes his mouth and takes a breath.

“Bucky, you…” He trusts his self-control, he really does, but he would never in a million years, in all his nearly immortal life, risk Bucky on assuming anything. “You gotta tell me right now, is this just—?”

“This isn’t _just _anything. I want you so bad,” Bucky cuts in, feeling where that question was going. The answer has Steve swaying on his feet, but he doesn’t move closer yet. “I’m not—I’m not dumb on it yet, ok? I’m not thinking with my dick, I’m—” He takes a breath. “I know my head’s been messed up, but I _know_… Even when it was just me and my hand, you a whole room away, it was still always _you_. I love _you, _Stevie—”

Bucky catches him like it’s easy, because even if Steve’s new strength makes him stumble back, he’s still the same little guy Bucky fell in love with in the first place.

The kissing is new, but _fuck_—Bucky’s knees go weak at the touch of Steve’s lips on his—they can both get used to it.

“My best guy,” Steve laughs delightedly and Bucky whimpers like he’s been kicked. Steve kisses the sound away, reveling in the smell of Bucky’s relief. “My Bucky, I love you, too.”

“_Please_,” Bucky begs now, shameless in the face of Steve’s love.

Steve doesn’t bother being coy. “How?”

“In a bedroom,” Bucky answers and starts walking off as soon as Steve laughs.

It starts out with kisses, because Bucky has always been the worst form of temptation. Up in his arms, Steve has easy access to his neck and uses it, pressing kisses to the skin so he can feel his breath catch, feel the rumble of his soft growls, feel his blood pounding just below the skin. “Wanna bite you so bad, Bucky,” he admits in a mumble right against his throat.

Bucky swallows and his heartbeat upticks slightly, arousal or a response to a predator near his jugular, Steve can’t tell at first. Then his hand comes up to the back of Steve’s neck. “Something stopping you?”

Steve doesn’t gouge him, not like he really wants to, not yet, but he does bite down enough to get a little taste. Bucky hisses and quickly shoulders into his bedroom as Steve starts sucking a dark hickey over the little scrapes he’s left on Bucky’s throat. The faint tease of blood over his tongue leaves him aching. He gasps when he’s tossed backwards onto the mattress, the sort of roughness Bucky would’ve never allowed before he turned and he _loves it._

The door slams shut when Bucky kicks back at it, stripping his clothes off as he stumbles almost drunkenly towards the bed to fling himself over Steve.

Like this isn’t the first time, like their bodies have always known how to do this, they melt together. Bucky’s weight, furnace hot and welcome as it settles into Steve who sinks beneath it, still marveling at the taste of Bucky on his tongue. They’re kissing like they need it more than breathing, Bucky growing increasingly more frantic, alternating between low growls and tiny, near-silent whimpers. Steve swallows every sound, gives off a loud groan of his own when Bucky rocks their arousals together.

“_Bucky_,” he pulls back to gasp and Bucky presses his face firmly against Steve’s neck, scents him thoroughly.

“God, I been wanting that,” Bucky says and his voice is starting to go gravely and low as he kisses down Steve’s throat. “Always knew you were mine; you smell like _Mine_, got my fuckin’ blood in you_._” He bites at Steve’s collar bone. When his shirt apparently becomes too much of a hassle, he tears it right down the center with a claw that is hair-raisingly close to Steve’s skin. His arousal throbs in his pants. “And I’m yours, just yours, Stevie, always, never anyone else’s, never again.”

The thought gets its hooks in Steve’s heart and pulls tight knowing Bucky spent so many years lost from him. He almost cries with relief; Bucky is here and Steve will _ruin _anyone who tries to take him away. He feels his own claws come out and does nothing to fight the instinct to cling to Bucky, arms and legs everywhere. “You’re all mine, Bucky,” he says and pants through the resulting thrust of Bucky’s hips.

“I want—” Bucky’s voice catches and Steve strokes down his back. “Steve, I want you…”

Steve kisses his ear. “You got me, pal, right where you want me, huh?” He clenches his legs tighter around Bucky’s waist. “I know how bad off you are, you gonna give it to me?”

Bucky pulls back to look at him, eyes all dark and animal with want. “You gonna let me, Stevie? Fuck you so good everyone knows who you belong to?”

“Yeah, Buck, _yes_,” Steve tells him breathlessly, pulls him down to drag his teeth along the shell of Bucky’s ear. “Mark me up.”

It’s a challenge he need not have issued, but Bucky rises to the occasion anyway.

Before he can even say another word, Bucky’s hands are everywhere. Claws narrowly avoiding skin as he divests Steve of the rest of his clothing, baring his body to Bucky’s greedy mouth and hands. He scrapes his teeth along the column of Steve’s throat down to his chest, where his fingers frame Steve’s ribs. Steve shakes with a silent laugh when Bucky kisses at his belly button only for it to turn into a breathless groan when Bucky noses at his crotch.

“You smell so good,” he breathes. “Smell like _me._”

Steve swallows, canting his hips up towards Bucky’s face. “I wanna smell like _you fucked me_.”

The thought seems to knock most of Bucky’s sense right out of his head and he whines, frantically pawing through the bedside drawer. He almost spills the lube all over the place when he gets it in his hand, but he manages to get most of it on his fingers. Steve keeps his legs spread easy even if he can feel the near-feral want creeping over the back of his mind. Bucky’s heartbeat is pounding in his ears and his heart is answering in kind. He sits up, thinking to help the process along only for Bucky to bodily press him down, growling into his throat.

“Easy,” Steve says, claws in Bucky’s shoulder. “I’m right here, not going anywhere, just want you closer. Come—_oh._” His voice sputters out when Bucky’s slick, warm fingers trail down behind his balls. His hand is shaking, but he clings to humanity, reaches back to his love of a fragile boy and his thoughts of how he would make love to him. It’s not going to stay like that, it can’t, but he can let Steve have this sweetness.

“_Fuck_,” Bucky swears as he finally slides a finger inside, Steve clenching and relaxing in succession several times. Bucky can’t tell which is better, but the look on Steve’s face, the thick smell of his arousal is maybe the best thing Bucky has ever experienced.

It’s maybe a little too soon for another finger, but Steve just coughs out a wheezy, “_Yes_,” and pulls his leg back, rocking into Bucky’s hand as he gives it anyway.

Bucky thinks it’s stupid to be jealous of his own hand, but damn if the feeling isn’t hazy out there in the corner of his mind, buried under miles and miles of arousal. He’s so turned on his dick is drooling on the sheets between his legs. It’s hot, he’s sweating all over the place, like he must be burning Steve with his touch, but if he stops, he’ll catch fire. Spreading his fingers, he looks down to see the slick pink flash of Steve’s insides, his ability to focus on anything else shot to hell. He’s so hard it hurts, literally, and he’s well past the point of shame about it. “Steve, _Stevie_, please, I gotta—”

“I know, Buck, come on,” Steve says, voice unsteady and feeling dizzy on the smell of Bucky’s want. He sucks in a harsh breath when Bucky tugs his fingers free, shoving his thighs up under Steve’s, bending him in a neat little fold as he lines up his cock. “Been waiting for you so long—_oh_!”

Steve doesn’t have to wait much longer. Bucky presses his cock into Steve in an inelegant slide, not quick enough to hurt, but sharp enough to have Steve groaning. He jolts when Bucky bites down on his shoulder, damn close to breaking skin. Hissing through his teeth, Steve fists a hand in Bucky’s hair and lets his head fall back. Part of him wants to chase the pleasure, rock his hips in time with Bucky, stroke his own aching arousal, but he can’t even make himself let go. He groans and pants as Bucky’s thrusts rock him into the bed.

A shout startles out to Steve’s throat when, between one thrust and the next, Bucky seems to swell inside him. He knows what it is, he _knows_ and it makes him leak across his own stomach with a sudden rush of heat. “Oh,_ fuck_, Bucky!”

Bucky kisses up his throat again to mumble against his lips. “Gonna knot you, Stevie,” he tells Steve unsteadily, shaking all over. “Gonna pump you all full of me, just me, baby, you’re gonna be all mine.”

Steve would like to think he doesn’t whine at that, but he does, sharply and right in Bucky’s ear. Bucky turns to him, murmuring soothing nonsense until Steve can speak. “Please, _please_,_ do it_,_ Buck_,_ please_,_ p_—” He finds himself pushed beyond words when Bucky shoves in as close as he can get, rocking shortly again and again until Steve’s eyes are rolling back in his head. Bucky growls, bites down, harder than before, hard enough to draw blood and have Steve sobbing as he comes between their chests. He clenches and Bucky gasps, comes and comes and comes, throbbing and swollen inside Steve.

They both sigh shakily when Bucky lets himself collapse, lowering to cover Steve fully as they catch their breath together. At least for the minute Steve allows them before he braces—clenching unintentionally, earning himself a broken whimper for his troubles—and flips them over.

Shocked, Bucky lands flat on his back staring up into Steve’s eyes, gone completed red-gold. “Buck…” he wavers, because something in him has come loose. It’s always been restraint around Bucky, exercises in not pushing too far and taking too much, but somewhere in the middle of this, becoming _them_, Steve feels half as feral as Bucky. He _needs _now, in a way sex can’t quite satisfy.

Bucky stares up at him, mind cleared for the moment, and understands what Steve wants without him even being able to say it. “You wanna get hopped on rut blood?” he asks, teasingly arching his head back to show his throat. “Go for it. We’re not done yet, Stevie, you’ll need to keep your strength up.”

Steve’s fangs press against the inside of his lips and he smiles when Bucky’s pulse jumps back up. “I don’t need much,” he promises, rubbing a hand up Bucky’s chest, heedless of the come splattered there. “You topped me off, remember? Just wanna taste.”

“S’all yours,” Bucky says again.

“Yeah, you are,” Steve agrees easily this time, sinking his fangs into Bucky’s throat. He’s aware of himself, of how he isn’t _hungry_, just _needs this._ He needs Bucky’s blood burning down his throat as much as Bucky needs to fuck him, throbbing and hissing at the nick of Steve’s teeth. Rut blood—_Bucky’s _blood is intoxicating, but he only takes his few swallows before he licks the wounds until they heal. Then keeps licking just because he can.

“Can you get drunk on vamp venom?” Bucky slurs, hand coming up to paw at Steve’s face.

Snorting, Steve permits Bucky’s fingers to trace along his fang, nipping at him once before he pulls back to speak. “I think that’s blood loss, genius.”

“I _am _a genius,” Bucky attests firmly, even if he already sounds half-asleep. “I have the _best_ ideas.”

“Some would call that lacking a survival instinct,” Steve replies blandly, but he’s feeling pretty fat and happy himself. Bucky’s rut is still thrumming under his skin, but for now, they’re both sated and quiet. When Bucky rolls them onto their sides, Steve shivers happily at the feel of Bucky’s breath tickling over his throat as he ducks his face.

“You smell like me,” Bucky says with wonder, tucking his nose in deeper.

Steve laces his fingers through Bucky’s hair, scratches gently at his scalp. “Figure I should,” he replies, “I’m yours, aren’t I?”

Bucky lets out a happy little sound and his heart skips in his chest. “Right ’til the end of the line, Stevie.”

A version of the future spent listening to Bucky’s heartbeat in time with his own sounds exactly like what Steve wants out of his whole long life.

That’s the kind of dream that lets him fall asleep easily in the arms of his mate.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading…you deserve to be so terribly loved
> 
> Again, I want to thank Kali so very much for bidding on me and trusting me to give them a story they might enjoy! I hope you (and your crew, if they read it!) liked the piece, but either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts. You were delightful! ❤
> 
> Everyone else, be sure to check out the other FTH fics in the collection and show the contributors some love! Whatever next year holds, be sure to keep an eye out for the chance to bid again. Cheers! – W


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